COORDINATOR

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Philip Crisp

Philip Crisp is a lawyer with over 30 years’ experience in the law, policy and practice of information technology (IT) and intellectual property (IP).

Early in his career, Philip worked on the pioneering Australian legal information retrieval system, SCALE. Through most of the 1980s he was a policy advisor on copyright law reform. In 1990 he joined the Australian Government Solicitor, where he was lead lawyer for the Commonwealth in establishing the legal framework for the Cooperative Research Centres Programme. He held the position of Special Counsel—Commercial at AGS for about 10 years, and created many IT- and IP-related legal precedents and methodologies for Commonwealth agencies. His IP manual published in 2000 was the most comprehensive source of guidance on Commonwealth IP management at the time. On retirement he had arguably done more than anyone to shape the way the Commonwealth manages its copyright.

Philip also had a significant practice in the education sector. He devised a copyright licensing system for vocational training materials, which was adopted by Commonwealth and state ministers for education in 1998 and operated under the name AEShareNet until 2011. Under the system around 30,000 materials were shared between jurisdictions and licences were transacted at much lower cost than under conventional practices.

Since 2012 Philip has been working on a book calling for a kinder, gentler national conversation. So you want to be a leader is an compilation of advice from 36 influential Australians for young people entering public life, and will be released by Hybrid Publishers (Melbourne) in May 2015.

Philip enjoys philosophy studies at the Australian National University, carpentry, recreational mathematics, family history research, and occasional satirical writing for children in his extended family. He and his partner Elizabeth are building a new home in Hobart.